behind Ghana's e-waste hell
Agbogbloshie: just one of the world's digital dumping grounds
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"The ever-growing demand for the latest fashionable mobile phone, flat screen TV or super-fast computer creates ever larger amounts of obsolete electronics that are often laden with toxic chemicals like lead, mercury and brominated flame retardants. Rather than being safely recycled, much of this e-waste gets dumped in developing countries " Greenpeace
“Before you enter the burning fields of Agbogbloshie, you will recognize a huge market. On one side you can buy cheap local fruits and vegetables and on the other side you will see loads of manufacturers and scrap dealers. Go to these scrap dealers and you will see men sitting on broken TVs smashing their hammers and simple tools against any kind of car parts, machines and electronic devices” Kevin McElvaney
"The taxpayer should not bear the cost of recycling old electrical goods. Manufacturers should take full life cycle responsibility for their products and, once they reach the end of their useful life, take their goods back for re-use, safe recycling or disposal."
"The ever-growing demand for the latest fashionable mobile phone, flat screen TV or super-fast computer creates ever larger amounts of obsolete electronics that are often laden with toxic chemicals like lead, mercury and brominated flame retardants. Rather than being safely recycled, much of this e-waste gets dumped in developing countries " Greenpeace
"Not knowing—and not caring—where the waste goes represents willful ignorance on a monstrous scale." Renee Shur
"What you do to get money, is what kills you" Idriss Zakarias, 20yrs old
"Agbogbloshie is hardly a household word. It doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue with familiarity. But it should be as familiar to us as the names of some of the storied (and reviled) places where our high-tech toys are designed and manufactured. If there were any fairness left in the world, Agbogbloshie would be designated as a sister city to Cupertino (headquarters of Apple), Palo Alto (headquarters of Hewlett-Packard), Tucheng, Taiwan (headquarters of Foxcom), and Seoul, South Korea (headquarters of Samsung).
After all, Agbogbloshie is a vital link in the chain of electronic-waste (e-waste) disposal that stretches from those first-world cities and the high-tech industries that thrive in them to the poverty-stricken African nation of Ghana.
Isn’t it time to be reminded that when we’re seduced by the latest digital device with its fifty cool features we’ll never use and dump last year’s shiny new thing with the forty cool features we never used that the old stuff’s got to go somewhere? That somewhere often is Agbogbloshie, a ruined city that’s been called the “dirty secret of the hi-tech industry.” If it’s easier for you to pronounce, just call it Sodom and Gomorrah, the nickname residents have given the city in acknowledgment of the sordid living conditions and rampant crime that plague the lives of those who call the place 'home.'"
Occasional Planet